P.O.D. bank accounts
Georgia's Multiple-Party Accounts law, O.C.G.A. § 7-1-810 et seq., lets any bank or credit union offer a payable-on-death (P.O.D.) account. The named beneficiary has no access to the funds and no rights over the account while the owner is alive — they simply receive whatever remains on deposit automatically once the owner dies, without a probate filing. This sits alongside the joint-account survivorship rule covered in our guide to Georgia joint property, which uses the same statute but applies when there are two current co-owners rather than one owner and a future beneficiary.
A will can't override the beneficiary
Section 7-1-813(e) is direct on this point: a right of survivorship coming from the account's own terms, a trust-account beneficiary designation, or a P.O.D. payee designation cannot be changed by a will. If someone wants a different person to receive a P.O.D. account, the only way to do it is to change the account itself, in writing, with the bank, while still alive — a later will naming someone else simply has no effect on that account.
Life insurance
A Georgia life insurance policy pays whoever is named as beneficiary directly, outside probate, as long as that person is alive when the insured dies. It only becomes part of the probate estate in a narrower set of situations: no beneficiary was ever named, every named beneficiary predeceased the insured with no contingent beneficiary on file, or the policy itself names the insured's own estate as beneficiary. Reviewing beneficiary designations after a major life event — divorce, remarriage, a beneficiary's death — is the practical way to avoid landing in that last group by accident.
Retirement accounts
A 401(k), IRA, or similar retirement account works the same way procedurally: the plan administrator or custodian keeps its own beneficiary designation form, separate from anything filed in Georgia probate court, and that designation controls who receives the account regardless of what a will says. As with life insurance, the account only becomes part of the probate estate if no valid beneficiary designation exists at the time of death.
Where the $15,000 bank affidavit fits in
Georgia's small estate bank affidavit, under O.C.G.A. § 7-1-239, is a different tool entirely — it exists for an account that has no beneficiary designation, releasing up to $15,000 held at a single institution to the estate's rightful recipients without opening a full probate case. A P.O.D. account never needs this affidavit, because the funds already have a named recipient. See our Georgia Small Estate Affidavit Checker for how that shortcut works.